I think the format worked pretty well. It was interesting to listen to the discussions and sometimes it felt like listening to some interesting podcast. It was pretty subject heavy, but especially the technical assignments were interesting to do and there was lots of interesting new information in topics that I knew a bit beforehand. Releasing the assignments week before deadline was maybe a bit challenging factor for myself as this happened to be very busy time at work. But all in all good stuff!

— Samuli, 2023-12-21

I found the course quite interesting and really enjoyed the exercises and the lectures in the course. Of course, sometimes after a long and exhausting day at work it was a challenge to actively participate in the discussions, but I tried my best.

The exercises, though taking some time to complete, were quite fun, especially cracking some passwords and exploring the dark net with TOR. I agree with some of the other student’s comments that it would have been good to get the exercises in advance in order to be able to do them whenever we have time. Working full time and studying at the same time is not easy, so having maximum flexibility is highly appreciated. Due to that reason I would have also preferred that the exercises are due before the next lecture and not 24 hours prior to the next lecture. Also having some more information on how the voluntary exercises affect the grade would have been good. To me, voluntary means that you can do them if you like and doing them can only increase your grade, however, maximum grade should be possible to get even without doing them. This is also how I expect the grading to be in this course.

As for the presentation assignment a bit more instructions would have been good. The instructions of doing anything of interest to you were a bit loose in my opinion. But overall, really fun course. Thanks very much Tero!

— Dimitar, 2023-12-20

I have enjoyed the course even though the content was challenging for me. All the topics were new, but that is why I decided to take it.
There was a nice atmosphere during the lectures and sometimes reminded the MeetUp format. Tero used interesting examples and helped us to dive dip into the topic of cybersecurity.
However, I highly recommend to make a structure of the course more academic (home tasks grade weight, evaluation criteria, presentation goals and requirements, etc.). It was very challenging for me when I had to postpone all the other studies because of home assignments for this course. That is why I would still suggest to make home assignments available straight from the beginning. I suppose that other students in the future would also appreciate an opportunity to schedule the studies according to their own priorities.
On the course enrollment it was mentioned: “no previous experience required”. I would have changed that or made the course more theoretical.
Other than that, it is a wonderful course for a curious mind. Tero has a lot of knowledge to share, so it is worthwhile to check this course out.
Merry Christmas and a lot of happy learnings in the upcoming New Year 2024!

— Ekaterina, 2023-12-19

The course was challenging in my point of view, but I learned a lot of new things about cyber security & threat modelling, cryptography, cracking the hashes & pwds etc. I also learned from other students’ presentations, which was nice.

We had a lot of homework, and some content would have required more teaching and learning, but the fast pace is familiar from other courses. In the beginning of the course there could be little bit more information about the studying environments & course demands so that people would know what is ahead :)

All in all, I think I have a better knowledge and understanding about network security and cybercrime.

— Eeva Niemi, 2023-12-15

I really enjoyed the class. It was a handful of knowledge that I have to take in 8 weeks. The course was interactive and Tero provide comprehensive feedback and insights on different security topics. Often he would use real life examples which was very good.

Despite the limited time of working on assignments, I appreciate how there is pressure for us to do the assignments as it serves as our commitment to the class. Though I would have appreciated if this was a classroom set up so it is easy to interact and practice.

Overall it was a very good 8 weeks with alot of knowledge and insights gained.

— Luis Reinerio Obana, 2023-12-15

The course is jam packed with relevant topics and learning objectives which is great! It teaches bits and pieces from multiple angles and creates a whole and healthy general picture. Vast majority of the topics were new to me but some familiar faces (Blockchain, Bitcoin, etc.) did show. For the first time I tried sending and receiving encrypted messages which was cool!

Now for the things that can be improved. I personally dislike flipped classroom setup. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I prefer a teacher actually lecturing and sharing his knowledge instead of the participants presenting something they find interesting and relevant. I did not really get the feeling that I got taught, more like that I had to learn myself.

Furthermore, I strongly recommend revisiting the idea of publishing homeworks in advance. Vast majority of course participants are employed at the same time and it would make our lives much easier to know what are homeworks in advance as availability to spend time on excercises flactuates every week and some excercises take more time than the others. On this very topic, I personally had to skip some voluntary assignments due to lack of time. If I have known them in advance, the outcome would be different. I also would advise to make clear distionction of what voluntary and bonus means. Do they have impact on grades or are they for our own amusement for example.

Later, it would be nice to have grading of assignments or at least feedback by the teacher, not the peers. This will ensure that the work we are doing or the path we have taken is correct. Now the only reference that we have if we did good or bad job is our own peers evaluations.

Overall, I personally enjoyed the course but there is room for improvement as described above. The atmosphere was nice and I definitely recommend the course if above mentioned changes are implemented.

— Giorgi Khvichia, 2023-12-14

I definitely learned something new on this course. I have never been looking into Bitcoin or TOR Browser previously, but now I know a lot more from them. All the knowledge I got on this course will help me in my future career, since most of the course topics inspire me to take more action on the topics.

Most of the presentations were nice and gave new knowledge. Even familiar topics gave some food for thought for the future. My fellow students made this course a great one.

At the start of the course there was a lot of homework and I felt like I failed to deliver what was requested. Combining fulltime work and studying was a bit too hard before Christmas time.

I will definitely recommend this course to someone whenever I just see a fellow student :) Having this course as an online version helped me to participate for this course. Without an online version I wouldn't have been able to attend this.

— Antti Honkanen, 2023-12-14